Jim Pepper
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Jim Pepper (b. Salem, Oregon, June 18, 1941; d. Portland, Oregon, February 10, 1992) was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and singer of Native American ancestry.
Beginning in the late 1960s, Pepper became a pioneer of fusion jazz, his band The Free Spirits (active between 1965 and 1968, with guitarist Larry Coryell) being credited as the first to combine elements of jazz and rock. His primary instrument was the tenor saxophone (he also played flute and soprano saxophone), and his characteristic incisive, penetrating tone and soulful delivery was unique for its time. A similar timbre was taken up by later players such as Jan Garbarek, Michael Brecker, and David Sanborn.
Of Kaw and Creek heritage, Pepper also achieved notoriety for his compositions combining elements of jazz and Native American music. Don Cherry and Ornette Coleman encouraged Pepper to reflect his roots and heritage and incorporate it into his jazz playing and composition. His "Witchi Tai To" (derived from a peyote healing chant of the Native American Church which he had learned from his grandfather) is the most famous example of this hybrid style; the song has been covered by many other artists. Pepper supported the American Indian Movement. He served as musical director for Night of the First Americans, a Native American self-awareness benefit concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. in 1980 and played also on pow-wows.
In his own projects, he recorded with Cherry, Nana Vasconcelos, Collin Walcott, Kenny Werner, John Scofield, Ed Schuller, Hamid Drake, and others. His CD Comin' and Goin' (1983) is the definitive statement of Pepper's unique "American Indian jazz" with nine songs played by four different line-ups. He worked also with the Liberation Music Orchestra, Paul Motian' s quintet, Bob Moses, Marty Cook, Mal Waldron, David Friesen, and Amina Claudine Myers, and toured Europe intensively.
In 1998, composer Gunther Schuller arranged The Music of Jim Pepper for symphony orchestra and jazz-band, conducted and recorded it. Pepper was posthumously granted the Lifetime Musical Achievement Award by First Americans in the Arts in 1999, and in 2000 he was inducted into the Native American Music Awards Hall of Fame. In 2005 the Oregon Legislative Assembly honored the extraordinary accomplishments and musical legacy of Pepper.
[edit] Films
- Pepper's Pow Wow (1995). Directed by Sandra Sunrising Osawa. Seattle, Washington: Upstream Productions.
